Funeral Memorial Cards

I’ve just had a talk to my friend Sue and she commented on the Star Letter in the latest “Your Family History” magazine in which a reader has a collection of several hundred Memorial Cards. He offers to search the collection for family names of other readers.

Sue suggested that a National Memorial Card database might be a good idea attached to the MadAboutGenealogy website whereby readers of this website could scan their cards and I would place them on a searchable database. Sounds like a good idea, so if you would like to scan and send any memorial cards that you have to me at [email protected] I’ll see what I can do about starting a database. I think we should limited it to pre 1918 cards.

Memorial cards are little treasures for the genealogist, the Victorian ones are particularly beautiful and often packed with information about birth and death dates, relationships and burial details. They were generally given to friends and family of the deceased by those arranging the funeral. Sometimes they include the time and place that the funeral was to take place so were almost like an invitation card, whilst others were sent as a remembrance for those who were unable to attend.

A Google search brings up a large number of hits and a Google Image search has many fine examples.

The Ephemera Society has a good page on the cards and Victorian funeral requisites in general. As you would expect The V & A Museum has a good collection some of which are online on their website.

About Me

History, particularly Family History is my passion. I have worked in libraries & archives, I teach family history, conduct workshops and give genealogy presentations. It seemed a shame to have all this knowledge & experience and not share it with others, so this website was born.